The most helpful favourable review

The most helpful critical review

85 of 90 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 starsClever
I wasn't convinced by McEwan's attempt at humour in Solar and this is very much a return to what I think he is good at. The story of Serena Frome (rhymes with plume!) and narrated by her, it tells of her progression from studying maths at Cambridge (whilst nurturing her real passion for literature) to her recruitment by MI5 in the early 70s. MI5 at that time is very much...

3.0 out of 5 starsLike an ice sculpture: perfectly carved but rather cold
McEwan's latest novel charts the progress of Serena Frome from the seat of her father's bishopric, via a mathematics degree at Cambridge, to a junior role in MI5 during the 1970s. Much of the novel is taken up with her romantic engagements, professional disappointments and love of literature until all of them become bound together in a single operation, Sweet Tooth...

Very tedious, very disappointed in this book, was expecting something a little more exciting. Serena just stumbles form one man to another falling in love with every one of them. This is more a book about reading books than spying.

This has to be the most disappointing McEwan novel yet. I expected a sinister spy novel but it is simply a romance and a rather badly written one at that. The whole tone is not credible and Serena, the "heroine", is one of the weakest female characters ever created. It's an easy read but a dull one, and the "mission" from which she "did not return safely'" is a poor excuse for a plot. The sort of light weight froth that the BBC will probably create an Autumn drama out of, which will you leave you thinking - so what? It's like feminism never happened...

I really enjoyed the twist in this tale. I was expecting showdown, misery and separation after the exposure of deceit but the letter restored our belief in the genuine love we had witnessed. So there was no disappointment and we were left with a surprising and uplifting hope that despite the most intimate seeming duplicity, real connections and relationships cannot be successfully destroyed even by forces bent on destruction.

Loops back on itself. An undemanding read. Writing from the perspective of the opposite sex must be quite difficult. I think I would have appreciated more covering the workings of the relevant department.

Think I see some of myself in the main character; reads very quickly but perhaps sometimes superficially; not really speed reading, but not one to dwell on meanings too much. Add to that a mathematical bent!

In Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan visits the themes of invention, intelligence and inspiration.Literature and spying are viewed through the looking glass of his unique creativity.No other author has his ability to lead you by the hand and then pull the rug from under your feet.....it's a pleasure to be in his wise and grown up hands. Among his best......

Given the nature of this novel I found myself wondering whether the author actually set out to write this pedestrian drivel simply to prove that an audience can be deceived into thinking that such rubbish is high quality simply on the back of the writer's reputation. I finally concluded that it was just unintended, pretentious drivel.